An oral inflation valve similar to the novel valve disclosed hereinafter is shown in U.S. Pat. No. 4,305,425 to Mackal et. al. That valve includes a disc-shaped valve head that is rigidly connected to a valve stem and which seats on an annular, beveled surface. Although that early valve adequately performs its intended function, the rigid interconnection between head and stem often results in the head not squarely abutting its seat. This means that air will leak from the inflated article. Quality control procedures performed on the rigidly built valves of the prior art have shown that an unacceptably high percentage of them do leak. More precisely, the leakage rate of those valves is fifty five percent.
These rigid valves of the prior art are also subject to two additional drawbacks: When air is introduced into the valve as the article is being inflated, the stem is axially displaced as desired but it skews wildly. This skewing often contributes to the failure of the valve head to resume its fully seated position after the article has been inflated. Secondly, the skewed valve head often blocks, at least to some extent, air flow into the article.
What is needed, then, is a valve construction that enables the valve head to be squarely seated after each inflation so that the fifty five percent leakage rate of the present inflation valves can be drastically reduced. The needed construction would also eliminate valve stem skewing and would allow a better flow rate of air through the valve during inflation, but the prior art, taken as a whole, neither teaches nor suggests how the art could be advanced.